However, some municipalities have already gone ahead with granting independent contractors the right to unionize despite the Taft-Hardly Act’s (another legacy labor law) explicit exclusion of independent contractors. The Seattle City Council passed a bill in December 2015 allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to form a union (a bill certain to face legal action, however).

These issues date back to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), passed as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933, where the definition of employees versus independent contractors was not explicit, and left to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an independent governmental agency tasked with investigating unfair labor practices, to decide.

Today, 86 years later, we’re still trying to clarify the same definitions, this time in a new era of workplace quandry triggered by the gig economy.

What does the future of employment look like for freelancers, especially with such inconsistency across industries in this gig economy? Only time – and court rulings – will tell.